f color rose in her friend's
cheeks, but she did not reply, so Marion continued: "You don't have to
live here nine months in the year, and you don't know all the
intricacies and peculiarities of our society."

"Perhaps I don't, but to me the peculiarities are all in Chicago's
favor. I love the go-ahead spirit, and I love the lack of affectation
among the people one meets."

"The go-ahead spirit you love," Marion replied, "is but an insatiable
craving for the 'mighty dollar', and the lack of affectation resolves
itself into a lack of _savoir faire_."

"Why, Marion, how can you say such things. You have friends here with as
much knowledge of the world as any one."

"Yes, but how many? Perhaps fifty, or be liberal and say a hundred, and
they were all brought up away from Chicago, or, like myself, have lived
away from here a good many years of their lives. If they remain here
long enough they will stagnate like the natives."

"You unpatriotic rebel. I have almost a mind to denounce you to the
people you are slandering."

"I am not slandering them. I am only speaking my convictions. You think
I am captious, but I merely understand the subject, and I ought to, for
heaven knows I have had a long enough experience. One has the choice
here between parvenu vulgarity and Puritanic narrow mindedness. The one
makes us the butt of the comic papers and the other is simply
unbearable. I was brought up in the latter, and of course all ancient
families,--that is to say, those dating from before the fire,--come
under that eminently respectable classification, but I actually believe
one would find the pork-packers more distracting."

"What do you call Puritanic narrow-mindedness, Marion?"

"I call it that carping sanctimoniousness which makes certain people
throw up their hands in horror at the slightest appearance of advanced
and civilized ideas. It is scarcely more than five years since a woman
who wore decollete evening gowns was one of the chosen of Beelzebub, a
warm meal on Sunday night was a sacrilege, and wine at dinner the
creation of the Devil himself; but the people who hold such ideas will
talk scandal by the hour while making red flannel shirts for heathen
babies. I don't believe you know how a few of us have struggled to
liberalize this city and raise its society a little above that of a
country village."

"You are too bitter, Marion."

"No, I am not. You should have witnessed the tussle I had with mama,
before I